Eadgyth hurried away to the bower.
The days that followed were like an evil dream for all in the castle. The deadly monotony let them note clearly how, hour by hour, death was creeping nearer.
The mangonels and warrewolves were busy at their work, and the din of their projectiles was ever in the ears of the besieged. But these were not what they feared. These could but splinter a fragment off a stone here and there, but could make no dangerous breach in walls thirteen feet thick; besides, wooden galleries had been projected from the battlements, through which the defenders poured scalding rain of boiling water and molten lead upon the engineers, and so prevented any lengthened attack upon a given spot.
No; the enemy they feared was Famine! She stared them in the face. Day by day more nearly her awful ghoulish eyes came nearer, and the grip of her bony hands was at their throats.
And still the warders scanned the horizon vainly, in hope to see the glimmer of friendly armour, still vainly watched the river for the flash of friendly oars.
Day after day dragged its slow length along, and yet the position remained unchanged, save that the assailants had almost given up effort, and quietly surrounded them, biding their time, knowing well that it must come if only no relief appeared.
The garrison had long been reduced to the barest rations on which it was possible to sustain life, and the few poor horses which had been taken into the keep, in the hope of some happy chance making their services available, had shared the fate of their brethren.
Gaunt faces and spectre forms dragged wearily from post to post, and strange thoughts flitted across hungry brains when slain men had to be buried in the donjon vaults. If one were to eat a body now, what would happen at the last day? Would it be more difficult for the soul that needed it again than for those whose flesh had been food for worms in the usual way? Would the men who had partaken of the flesh, and incorporated it into their own bodies, have to give it up again when the time of resurrection had arrived, and go scant themselves? Then they shuddered and crossed themselves, and muttered an ave or a paternoster, shunning the hungry eyes of their neighbour, lest he should guess their thoughts, or be thinking like horribleness himself, while they buckled their belts tighter to stay their pangs.
The countess, worn to a shadow, with her arm still bandaged,—for the worry and care she had undergone had hurt her health and kept her wound from healing,—was ever among them, consoling, entreating, commanding, inventing all manner of comforts for their souls and their bodies. She it was who prompted the cooks to make dainty dishes out of most unlikely materials; who sang the song of Rollo as she passed on her way, and kept up their hearts with gay jests.
One day an archer had the good fortune to shoot a heron that was flapping with evenly beating wings across the sky, so that it fell fluttering upon the roof of the keep, and was soon killed and presented by the lucky marksman to the countess, as a fit tribute to her private table, the fare on which, as all knew, had been poor enough for some time past.